Agile RM for Embedded Systems Engineering: The Data Don’t Lie, Pt. II

Requirements Mismanagement by the Numbers

Marc Oppy | May 24, 2016

Behind every new product, version and variant delay or failure are engineering teams and stakeholders suffering through poorly managed requirements. Bad requirements management is usually the result of disorganized, unstructured communication between product planners, stakeholders and engineers.

Finding the requirements management sweet spot was a topic of discussion at our “How to Write Good Requirements” presentation in Santa Clara. At the core, good requirements need to be concise, specific and parametric, and should answer the question, “What do we need?” rather than, “How do we fulfill a need?”

The answer to the former question tends to get lost in the process, however.

“Many problems arise because the requirements are either too sparse or too complex. Either situation leads to unforeseen problems and unpredictable interactions later in product development when change is much more difficult. Obviously, sparse requirements leave out important concerns, which lead to unexpected problems. On the other hand, complex requirements can ‘overspecify’ a product, which leads to unforeseen interactions that cause problems.”

Compounding the above problems: As embedded systems’ capabilities evolve, requirements engineering and management methods stay frozen in time, holding up team progress.